The Lost Wallet
I passed and met many day riders as I biked along the Erie Canal. Most riders biked short sections before returning home. This reminded me of the Charles River bike path I would ride often in college. The path twisted and turned as it followed the seemingly endless river; scenes transitioned from open views with small hills in the distance to green tunnels and then back to open views again.
While I biked through one such stretch of shady path, I noticed a wallet on the ground. I biked roughly another hundred feet thinking about what I just saw. I halted then aggressively and awkwardly swiveled around to bike back to the wallet. I opened it up to see an ID. “If I can find a way to contact the owner of the wallet then I’ll hold on to it. If not, I’ll leave it where I found it and hope the owner will make their way back to the spot they dropped it,” I thought.
Through a long and strenuous process involving getting a trial subscription to LinkedIn premium in order to contact a potential coworker of Timothy (the man on the ID) and getting my first flat tire of the journey, I got a hold of the ID owner, and we met up at my campsite. After returning the wallet we talked for a bit, and I learned that he was a history professor at a local university and regularly biked short sections of the trail on weekends. His fascination with my trip made me proud. I considered how when I would be that age and settled down, I might have the same fascination and excitement for such a trip, because I would never be able to do one again. This worried me. I didn’t want this trip to be my last big hurrah before returning to a mundane life for the rest of my time here on earth. I would need to do something even more grand afterwards, perhaps, a bike trip around the world.
After Timothy left, I dragged my bike with a rear flat tire to a picnic bench by the canal lock. While setting up camp and beginning to eat my crunchy lentil leftover concoction still in my pot from two days earlier, a bike touring couple probably in their mid-to-late twenties, arrived at a bench near mine. I talked to them for a few minutes before I managed to run out of things to say, and quickly retreated to my food and menial tasks around camp. Every time I saw other cycle tourists on my trip, I would get excited by the size of the community.
Lock 30, Erie Canal
I finished my dinner then strolled over to the canal, and stared at the sun setting into its reflection along the water. The grayish blue sky filled with dark clouds turned to yellow then red, only to meet up with its rippled reverse along the canal. I thought about my next big trip even though I was barely a twentieth through the current one. I would likely have to do it alone as it would probably be difficult to find someone willing to set aside other life plans to be a nomad on a bike for a year or so. Would I be able to find companionship like the couple had? I felt like I would like to wait to find a woman who would be excited for a trip like this, but the thought of having to wait for the right circumstances filled me with angst. I parted from one of the most stunning sunsets I had seen and let these thoughts ruminate as I headed to bed in my tent.